looking for an executive office chair

Related Articles
Eclipse gets seat on Java board	13 November 2007
In a first for the open-source tooling organization, the Eclipse Foundation has won a seat on a Java Community Process (JCP) executive committee.The election presents a peculiar alliance in that Sun is the founder of Java and perhaps still dominates its development but is not a member of Eclipse. Sun holds a permanent seat on JCP executive committees.Launched in 1998, the JCP oversees various amendments made to the Java platform, which are the subject of Java Specification Requests (JSRs). The JCP Program Management Office announced Tuesday results of 2007 JCP Executive Committee elections. Eclipse was newly elected to the Java SE/EE (Standard Edition/Enterprise Edition Executive Committee. Committee members given new terms include the Apache Software Foundation, Google, Nortel, and Red Hat Middleware.Eclipse joined the JCP this year. Sun is one of the few major holdouts from Eclipse, which features such companies as IBM, Oracle and BEA Systems. Sun instead focuses on the NetBeans open source tooling platform.Representing Eclipse on the executive committee will be Mike Milinkovich, executive director of Eclipse."We are very honored to be elected to the JCP executive committee," Milinkovich said in a statement released by Eclipse on Tuesday morning. "The success of the Java community is very important to the long-term success of Eclipse. Therefore, I expect to be an active participant in ensuring the JCP moves towards a more open and collaborative environment for setting the future direction of Java."Sun applauded the election of the rival open-source tools organization."It's great to see the Eclipse Foundation and Time Warner Cable among the newly elected members," of JCP executive committees, said Patrick Curran, chair of the JCP and director of the JCP Program at Sun. "Eclipse adds open-source expertise, which will help the JCP broaden its push toward greater collaboration and openness."?Newly elected to the Java ME (Micro Edition) Executive Committee was Time Warner Cable. Re-elected were Intel, Orange France SA, Research in Motion, and Samsung Electronics.??"Time Warner brings the perspective of the digital TV industry -- a rapidly growing market for Java technology," Curran said.Members will take office on November 27 and participate in their first meetings on December 4. They each serve three-year terms.

Aibs 2007 board elections under way; polls close 9 november	02 November 2007
Ballots for the AIBS Board elections have been mailed; members can also vote online at www.aibs.org/vote. At the end of 2007, the following positions become vacant on the 13-person AIBS Board of Directors for individual members to vote on (a) president-elect, (b) secretary, and (c) two board members at large. (Board elections by the AIBS Council of Member Societies and Organizations are also under way through a separate online ballot.) All terms start January 2008. The president-elect serves a one-year term and automatically succeeds to a one-year term as president, then a one-year term as immediate past-president. Board members serve a three-year term, as does the secretary. To cast your vote, please go to the online ballot at www.aibs.org/vote and sign in with your last name and six-digit AIBS membership number (as it appears on your AIBS membership card and BioScience mailing label; for assistance, contact AIBS at admin@aibs.org, 703-790-1745, or 800-992-2427). A paper ballot was mailed to all members; if you prefer to use that ballot, please complete it and mail it to AIBS. The polls close on 9 November 2007. AIBS thanks all of the candidates for their dedication and willingness to run for these voluntary positions. Biographical sketches and election statements are presented below. Candidates for President-Elect The two candidates are listed alphabetically; vote for one. May Berenbaum Born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1953, May Berenbaum graduated with a degree in biology from Yale University in 1975 and received a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University in 1980. Since August 1980, she has been on the faculty of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has served as head since 1992. She is interested in interactions between phytophagous insects and their host plants and the function of these interactions in the organization and structure of natural communities. On the physiological level, she investigates mechanisms of toxicity of plant chemicals as well as molecular and biochemical adaptations of insects to these toxins; on the ecological level, she examines patterns of insect host plant use as a function of the distribution and interaction of plant chemicals. In addition, she is concerned with the practical application of ecological and evolutionary principles and has examined impacts of genetic engineering, global climate change, and invasive species on natural and agricultural ecosystems. In recognition of her work, Berenbaum has received the George Mercer Award and the Robert MacArthur Award from the Ecological Society of America and the Founder’s Award from the Entomological Society of America. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1994 and is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. In addition to her research, Berenbaum is devoted to teaching and fostering scientific literacy. She has written many magazine articles, as well as four books, about insects for the general public. She has had public speaking engagements at over 100 schools, service organizations, museums, science and nature centers, and special interest organizations and has been interviewed by media hundreds of times about insect-related news stories. She also founded the UIUC Insect Fear Film Festival, a celebration of Hollywood’s misperceptions of insect biology, an outreach activity now entering its 25th year. In recognition of her efforts in teaching and outreach, she has been granted the Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists in 1999 and the Entomological Society of America Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2006. Recent service to her profession includes membership on the editorial boards of four journals and terms on the National Academy of Sciences Council and Governing Board, the National Research Council Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Creationism, and the Advisory Board of the Koshland Museum of the National Academy of Sciences. She has chaired two National Research Council study committees, including most recently the Committee on the Status of Pollinators in North America. At present she is on the Board of Directors of the Xerces Society for the Preservation of Endangered Invertebrates and the Board of Directors of Conservation through Poverty Alleviation International (wild silk project). Berenbaum’s statement: The year 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. The biological sciences have changed substantially since its founding; spectacular advances have presented new opportunities to the community of biological scientists. The rise of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and computational biology has provided tools for investigating biological phenomena with hitherto unimaginable precision. At the same time and on an entirely different scale, globalization of trade and information technology has created new challenges to our community; among the most conspicuous are global climate change, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, invasive species, bioterrorism, and accelerating losses in biodiversity. The exponential growth of the life sciences has resulted in an explosion of literature, a proliferation of programs, and a tremendous expansion of the field, blurring disciplinary boundaries and affecting the development of allied physical and mathematical sciences. One perhaps inevitable consequence of this remarkable expansion has been a balkanization of the life sciences—progressive evolution of more specialized units that at times, due to perceived competition for funds, students, or attention, may be hostile to one another. The great strength of AIBS is that it can summon the disparate life sciences together again for greater impact and authority. Due to the comprehensive nature of its aggregate membership, AIBS is best equipped of all biological science organizations to advocate for the life sciences as a whole, provide guidance for their advancement, and rally to meet the challenges of the 21st century global community. Chief among the missions of AIBS is improving informal bioscience education, aimed at both providing a sound foundation of knowledge and communicating cutting edge developments to a general audience. The need for outreach and public engagement has, I believe, reached a critical juncture. Although I am completely enthusiastic about the upcoming Year of Public Understanding of Science, in 2009, at the same time I’m dismayed that there is a need for such a special, designated “year.” Digital communication of all sorts has made virtually every kind of scientific information available to the general public to an unprecedented extent. Innovations in open access publishing have made elements of the primary scientific literature universally accessible online; websites, podcasts, blogs, cable shows, and videos complement the more traditional radio, magazine and book sources of scientific information for the general public. Every year in theory should further public understanding of science, without any assistance from AIBS or any other science organization. Unfortunately, the increased accessibility of information through the Internet and in other new (and even traditional) media has been accompanied with a veritable explosion of misinformation, pseudoscience, and at times inflammatory rhetoric. Outreach efforts by scientists were in the not-too-distant past generally regarded as déclassé or undignified or the responsibility of individuals incapable of doing anything else in science. The bioscience community can no longer afford such attitudes; the entire science enterprise in the United States depends on the good will and support of the general public, and that support is contingent upon a clear understanding and appreciation of the value of science to public welfare. AIBS must lead by example in this enterprise. Insuring accurate and comprehensible communication of biological science is also essential in fulfilling the AIBS mission of advancing biological research in service to society and in promoting informed decision-making by policy-makers on issues relating to biological science. The complexities of interacting living systems have made science policy-making more difficult; access to objective information to inform policy is thus critical at all levels of government. American competitiveness in life sciences worldwide is at risk, in part because policy decisions at times have been unduly influenced by politics rather than sound science. AIBS has both a responsibility and an opportunity to contribute an articulate, rational, and objective voice to national and international discussions. Complex problems often require complex solutions and AIBS should contribute to promoting multidisciplinary systems approaches to addressing these problems. At the same time, the history of the biosciences, including many of its most spectacular recent advances, owes a great deal to investigator-driven basic research; in the midst of the fervor for developing new team-based multi-institution collective efforts, the importance of curiosity-motivated individual investigators should be recognized and nurtured, to insure a creative, competitive future. Finally (but no less importantly), I hope AIBS can insure the future of biosciences in the United States by articulating the fascination of the natural world and the adventure, excitement, and rewards of bioscience research to all facets of American society. Attracting and helping to train the next generation of biologists, by reinvigorating and enhancing K–12 education and broadening impacts in college and beyond, are the surest ways to brighten prospects for everyone’s future. It’s my fervent hope that the relevance of AIBS will continue to increase over the next 60 years. Deborah E. Goldberg Deborah E. Goldberg is the Elzada U. Clover Collegiate Professor and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan (UM). Her research explores the processes that control the structure and function of ecological communities over a variety of spatial and temporal scales, and how these processes are affected by changes in climate, nitrogen enrichment, and by invasion of exotic species. Her work includes syntheses of diverse aspects of species interactions and their contribution to community dynamics. She collaborates broadly both within ecology and across disciplines, including projects with hydrologists, remote sensing specialists, and molecular epidemiologists, and has conducted fieldwork in deserts, wetlands, and forests. Goldberg has also held appointments as a visiting faculty member at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of New Mexico, Ben Gurion University, and Charles University in Prague. She has served or is serving on the editorial boards of Ecology and Ecological Monographs; American Naturalist; Journal of Vegetation Science; Conservation Ecology; American Midland Naturalist; Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics; and Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution; she is also on the Advisory Council of the International Association of Vegetation Science and the Science Advisory Board of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. She has served as chair or member of numerous committees for the Ecological Society of America and the American Society of Naturalists, as well as for the University of Michigan, where she was on the Steering Committee for the UM theme semester “Explore Evolution.” Born in Brooklyn, New York, Goldberg received her BA from Barnard College in 1975, and her PhD from the University of Arizona in 1980. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kellogg Biological Station of Michigan State University from 1980 to 1983, and has been on the faculty at the University of Michigan since 1983. Goldberg’s statement: Perhaps it is now pedestrian to note that the 21st century is the century of the life sciences, or what we used to call biosciences. Yet in the public imagination, Life Sciences seems to have taken on a far more narrow meaning, “how will biotech allow me to live forever.” That is, the traditions that emerged from Wallace and Darwin and Mendel and Watson and Franklin and Carson and McClintock, to name a few, have been collapsed in the public mind into the narrow category of “biomedical.” It is imperative that we reinsert bioscience, with its original inclusive intent, into the discourse. In this context, I would argue that we have now entered the century of the integrative life sciences or, as AIBS has long had it, the biosciences. Scientists increasingly understand the complexity of feedbacks between the biosphere and all aspects of human society and the global environment. This complexity means we must ultimately view all lev